In many applications of communication technology, interleaving is used in combination with encoding for error correction. One technique, which is applicable to some types of burst-error communications channels, is to insert an interleaver between the channel encoder at the transmitting end of the channel. The interleaver redistributes the data bits or symbols ("data units X (i)") being transmitted over the channel so that the symbols are mutually separated by substantially more than the length of a "typical" burst of errors.
Interleaving makes the channel appear like a random-error channel to a decoder at the receiving end. For some high frequency, this technique can improve the performance by one to three orders of magnitude.
The present invention provides an improved method and apparatus for accomplishing this while mitigating some or all of the problems which are well known in the prior art